This handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of the fast-evolving alternative finance space and makes a timely and in-depth contribution to the literature in this area. Bringing together expert contributions in the field from both practitioners and academics, in one of the most dynamic parts of the financial sector, it provides a solid reference for this exciting discipline. Divided into six parts, Section 1 presents a high-level overview of the technologically-enabled finance space. It also offers a historical perspective on technological finance models and outlines different business models. Section 2 analyses digital currencies including guides to bitcoins, other cryptocurrencies, and blockchains. Section 3 addresses alternative payment systems such as digital money and asset tokenization. Section 4 deals with crowdfunding models from both a theoretical perspective and from a regulatory perspective. Section 5 discusses data-driven business models and includes a discussion of neural networks and deep learning. Finally, Section 6 discusses welfare implications of the technological finance revolution. This collection highlights the most current developments to date and the state-of-the-art in alternative finance, while also indicating areas of further potential. Acting as a roadmap for future research in this innovative and promising area of finance, this handbook is a solid reference work for academics and students whilst also appealing to industry practitioners, businesses and policy-makers.

This book discusses various aspects of blockchains in economic systems and investment strategies in crypto markets. It first addresses the topic from a conceptual and theoretical point of view, and then analyzes it from an assessment and investment angle. Further, it examines the opportunities and limitations of the taxation of crypto currency, as well as the political implications, such as regulation of speculation with crypto currencies. The book is intended for academicians and students in the fields of economics and finance.

This book provides an updated view of new trends in entrepreneurial finance, with the aim of guiding academics and non-academics alike that want to gain a deeper understanding of this field.It collects recent contributions from scholars from all over the world. Each chapter provides new empirical or theoretical evidence on fundamental issues related to entrepreneurial finance, including business angels, crowdfunding, Initial Coin Offerings, Mini bonds, public support and more. Besides reviewing the recent trends in the field, the book also highlights new avenues for research, and implications for practitioners.

Delving into the comprehensive evolution of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), this innovative book traces their origins and transition into modern forms such as Security Token Offerings, Initial Exchange Offerings, Initial DEX Offerings, and Non-Fungible Tokens. It provides an in-depth analysis of the factors behind the appeal of ICOs, the complex ecosystem surrounding them, and the key developments within the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.

This fully revised and updated third edition provides a practical examination of legal and regulatory issues in FinTech, a sector whose rapid rise in recent years has produced opportunities for innovation but has also raised new challenges. Featuring insights from over 40 experts from 10 countries, this book analyses the statutory aspects of technology-enabled developments in banking and considers the impact these changes will have on the legal profession.

This book describes how the rapid advancement in encryption and network computing gave birth to new tools and products that have influenced the local and global economy alike. One recent and notable example is the emergence of virtual currencies (such as Bitcoin) also known as cryptocurrencies. Virtual currencies introduced a fundamental transformation that affected the way goods, services and assets are exchanged. As a result of its distributed ledgers based on blockchain, cryptocurrencies not only offer some unique advantages to the economy, investors, and consumers, but also pose considerable risks to users and challenges for regulators when fitting the new technology into the old legal framework. The core of this proposed book is to present and discuss the evidence on financial asset capabilities of virtual currencies. The contributors of this volume analyze several interesting and timely issues such as the particularities of virtual currencies and their statistical characteristics; the diversification benefits of virtual currencies; the behavior and dependence structure between virtual currencies and the financial markets; the economic implications of virtual currencies, their effects, their price risk, and contagion spillovers in a unified and comprehensive framework; the future of virtual currencies and their distributed ledgers technology.

The great and fastening strides of the Fintech revolution continuously transform once-static traditional financial industry and provision of credit in particular. Blockchain innovation has led to creation of new industry of raising funds without the need for financial intermediaries such as venture capital or banks. In this book we build up a holistic picture of the token sales or initial coin offerings (ICOs) from their inception in 2013 to our days. We analyze the initial phases of the industry’s development, collecting information on all campaigns or ICO attempts in this period, providing a thorough quantitative analysis of the phenomenon. We also provide a detailed account of token sales mechanics and overview all the main actors in this new ecosystem of blockchain-based financing. By leveraging the open data on token sales contributions, we study the behavior of token sales investors and find out that recurrent investors do not succeed in selecting better ICO projects but bigger investors do. In the last part of the book, we study crypto tokens as investments and overview their functionality and risks involved, as well as look at the alternative methods of creating and distributing tokens and compare them to token sales.

The purpose of this monograph is to provide an overview of the IPO literature since 2000. The fewer numbers of companies going public in recent years has raised many questions regarding the IPO process, in both academic and regulatory circles. As we all strive to understand these changes in the market, it is especially important to understand the dynamics underlying the IPO process. If the process of going public is too costly or the IPO mechanism is plagued by too many conflicts of interest among the various intermediaries, then private companies may rationally choose other methods of raising capital. In a related vein, it is imperative that new regulations not be based on research focusing solely on large, more mature firms. Newly public firms have unique characteristics, and an increased understanding of such issues will contribute positively to well-functioning public markets and further growth of the entrepreneurial sector. We also provide a detailed guide to researchers on how to obtain a research-quality sample of IPOs, from standard data sources. Related to this, we tabulate important corrections to these standard data sources.

Slicing Pie outlines a simple process for making sure that the founders and early employees of a start-up company get their fair share of the equity. You will learn: How to value the time and resources an individual brings to the company relative to the contributions of others ; The right way to value intangible things like ideas and relationships ; What to do when a founder leaves your company ; How to handle equity when you have to fire someone. (4e de couv.).

The idea of a Cryptocurrency was first actualized in the late 1990’s as an electronically and anonymously controlled funding system. As the idea grew traction, the concept, with all its possibilities, became more widely accepted and is now referred to as Cryptocurrency. This currency is privately monitored and controlled and as such is often viewed as an alternative currency. The leading Cryptocurrency to be globally launched was the Bitcoin of 2009. To date, there are approximately 200 forms of cryptocurrencies available for purchase on the market. Cryptocurrencies are largely funded through a medium referred to as Initial Coin Offerings or ICO’s. Investors opt to utilize ICO’s as they are largely unregulated and as such minimize the rigors usually associated with these ventures. ISO’s are designed to ensure that initial as well as large scale investors are rewarded with a compensation package. The first recorded ICO was in 2013 for the Mastercoin cryptocurrency.